By Cho Mu-hyun
Korea’s smallest mobile phone manufacturer Pantech is likely to see its stake in the market shrink further due to the dominance of Samsung and LG Electronics.
The company began selling its latest Vega S5 smartphone via partner mobile carrier SK Telecom on Thursday but it is unlikely to narrow the gap with its rivals, industry officials say.
The new model has a 5-inch screen following the recent trend of larger displays. It has a 1.5 gigahertz dual-core processor, uses Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich Android operating system and has a 13 megapixel camera.
The specifications now seems standard on new phones and a lack of differentiation with competing products will likely incline consumers to buy phones with stronger brand images such as Samsung and LG, said an industry official, who declined to be named. Samsung’s Galaxy S3 boasts superior speed with its quad-core processor.
Pantech’s Vega Racer 2, initially slated for a June release was launched in May because the company wanted a head start in long-term evolution (LTE) against products such as LG Electronics’ Optimus LTE 2 and Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S3.
Pantech Chairman Park Byeong-yeop has vowed to challenge rival companies “fairly” with better products but according to one industry executive, the current handsets on the market are rather similar in specifications and features.
“Each company boasts features of their own LTE models but when the actual specifications were revealed it turned out they were practically the same.”
The sale figures for the Vega Racer have been overshadowed by explosive demand for the Galaxy S3 LTE released Monday.
Samsung Electronics says the handset sold a company record 50,000 on the first day. Representatives of mobile carriers SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus contacted by The Korea Times say that these numbers are likely true and that the product is a hot-seller.
The consensus among industrial officials is that Samsung sold the most LTE (long term evolution) phones in the first half of the year at around 5 million with LG trailing behind with 1.35 million and Pantech last with 1.31 million.
“The current market is Samsung’s world. Pantech can only contend with LG Electronics for a portion of the leftover pie,” said Lee Seoung-ju, head of Mobile Monday’s Seoul Chapter. “The challenge is marketing, and I recognized that the Vega S5 focused on games and cameras but it still won’t be able to challenge Samsung.”
LG is planning a yet to be named smartphone for release in September, which the company has been working on for over a year on the instigation of LG Group Chairman Koo Bon-moo. Apple’s sequel to the iPhone 4 is also expected to be out around the same period, which will hamper Pantech’s progress even further.
An office worker, surnamed Lee, says most around him are considering the Galaxy S3 when contracts expire for their current phones. “I saw a couple of commercials for Pantech’s Vega Racer 2 in theaters but waited to see the specifications of the Galaxy S3. The latter just seems the next best thing.”